Grant Thornton – Finalist 2023, Best Flexible Recruitment
Grant Thornton’s belief in agile and flexible working is clear throughout each stage of the recruitment process, with hiring manager support and education key to both communicating their flexible ethos and bringing it to fruition.
An open approach
Recruiters write job adverts in collaboration with hiring teams, providing coaching and guidance throughout the process to ensure the role is flexible and the advert is inclusive and barrier-free for all, emphasising the importance of achieving a balance between home and work live. All job adverts clearly state the flexibility available within a role, and the options for extra flex such as job shares and reduced or compressed hours. Support for those returning from a career break is also highlighted.
Within the careers website there is a section dedicated to family and flexible working practices, featuring a video of employees talking about how flexible working works for them. The section also talks about the firm’s approach to flexible working and its inclusive family policies, so prospective candidates can assess whether their personal requirements can be met.
Flexible by design
For Grant Thornton, agility and flexibility is a mindset based on trust which is communicated from the outset. They encourage candidates to explore how they can work in a way that allows them to deliver high-quality work whilst meeting their responsibilities in and outside of work. All of Grant Thornton’s people are empowered to work in an agile manner, flexing where, how and when they work, within their contracted pattern. In addition, the request for a formal flexible working pattern, such as reduced or compressed hours is available for employees from day one. Hiring teams discuss with recruiters the degree of flexibility available for each vacancy, as well as during the recruitment process should candidates request specific flexible requirements. Recruiters are open-minded to discussing different requirements at every stage to ensure new hires are set up to make working work and to succeed from day one.
Hiring community coaching and support
Support and education are seen as a key part of the success of flexible working, with managers receiving regular coaching plus an annual workshop delivered by recruiters around inclusive hiring, including, flexible recruitment and job design, inclusive decision making and bias awareness. This approach has been successful in shifting the mindset, so that interviewers now initiate conversations with candidates about flexibility that’s needed and how this could work for their team.
Measure of success
Grant Thornton is a hugely agile community, with all employees and Partners working in a hybrid manner, using flexible and agile methods to make work work for them, their clients and their team. There is a range of work patterns available including condensed hours, term-time only, reduced hours and home-based. The emphasis on coaching and educating hiring communities has resulted in a year-on-year improvement on the numbers of workers on formal flexible working patterns within the business.
